Monday, February 6, 2012

Windows 8 Got a Hidden Start Menu Orb

Windows 8 operating system comes with quite a few major design changes over previous versions of the Windows operating system.

The new Metro UI interface obviously makes the top of that list. Still most of the users are not sure whether it will improve their workflow on desktop systems. The Windows 8 Beta, which will supposedly be released later this months, should give everyone an answer to that.

A recent version of Windows 8 development preview suggests that Microsoft may have plans to change the desktop interface significantly as well. The developer preview released last year already crippled the start menu that Windows users were using in previous versions for various tasks such as starting applications, searching or opening the Control Panel.

The latest development preview version of Windows 8 has the taskbar without a start menu button. However, the start menu button appears only when users move the mouse (or their finger) to the left lower corner of the screen.

The basic idea behind the move, besides removing noise from the interface, is to make users use the taskbar and the new charms for all the things they are doing on the desktop. Charms basically appear when you move the mouse to the edge of the screen.

Pinning applications directly to to the taskbar will become more of a necessity in Windows 8, considering that users do not have options anymore to start apps from the start menu. What about seldom used applications, you may ask? Your only options at this point in time seem to be the built-in search or to use windows Explorer to navigate to application folders directly.